MUMBAI, JULY 25: The dispute over 43 acres of land adjacent to the Lokhandwala Complex in Andheri (west) got further entangled with one more person laying claim to the land during a hearing in the Bombay High Court on Friday.Justice R M Lodha was hearing a suit filed by the Oshiwara Land Development Corporation (OLDC) in 1991 against the state government's consent terms for the handing over of the land to a private builder. Already two petitioners have filed public interest petitions challenging the consent terms, and a third, the Nivara Hakk Suraksha Samiti was allowed as intervenors on Friday.The matter pertains to 83 acres and 38 gunthas of land at Oshiwara village that the OLDC laid claim to since 1980s. This area lay in the land admeasuring 362 acres belonging to the state government that was adjacent to the land owned by OLDC. The state had already transferred the land to the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority and was marked for public housing.While the dispute continued over theyears, since MHADA declined to hand over its property, at present worth around Rs 350 crore to the builder, it was after the present Shiv Sena-BJP government came into power, that they undertook a policy decision to hand over 50 per cent of the land to the other party, to get rid of such long standing land disputes.Two public interest petitions, one filed by Uday Kothare and Dinesh Pachkude, and another by one A A Khan were filed in 1998 challenging the consent terms of the state government. The petitions along with the suit were heard in February 1999 where the advocates for the petitioners, V C Kotwal and Neeta Karnik pointed out that the state cabinet had in August 19, 1997 decided that 20 per cent of the flats in the buildings to be constructed by OLDC would have to be kept reserved for the economically weaker sections. However, these terms had not found mention in the consent terms that were filed by the state at that time.The state then claimed that it was an oversight and decided to withdraw theconsent terms. Fresh consent terms were to have been filed on Friday. In the meanwhile, curiously enough, the petitioners changed their advocates and in the last hearing of July 13, advocates Neeta Karnik and Sumedha Rao who represented A A Khan withdrew from the petitions. Milind Vasudev, on instructions from Dhruv Liladhar and Co for Kothare and Jerry D'silva for A A Khan, submitted the new `vakalatnamas' to the court.When the matter came up for final hearing on Friday, one Byramjee Jeejeebhoy whose predecessors had sold the land to OLDC, claimed that he had an agreement with the OLDC wherein if OLDC were to get any of the disputed land, it would have to share it with him on a 35:65 basis. Counsel for OLDC, Janak Dwarkadas argued that the party had come in as ``vultures'' to stake its claim and instead of challenging the consent terms, it should be supporting the OLDC, since their gain is contingent on the success of the OLDC. He offered an undertaking that if the party proves its contention, 35 percent of the land accruing to OLDC would be given to him.However, counsel for Jeejeebhoy, D R Poddar argued that the consent terms were drawn up so that no land went to OLDC, but was divided between two proposed housing societies, Shree Swami Samarth Prasanna Co-operative Housing Society (CHS) and Apna Ghar (CHS). ``If the court were to put its seal of approval on the terms, I would have no share in the property,'' Poddar argued.Acceding to his arguments, Justice Lodha directed that OLDC file an affidavit in reply to the intervenorship application made by Jeejeebhoy and placed the matter for further hearing on August 5.
